Her Memories are Warm
by Kanna37
Summary: Canon to AU/AR. Loke finds out about Lucy's near sacrifice for Aries' sake when he stumbles across Gemini in the spirit world wearing their master's form and reminiscing. Set sometime after the Oracion Seis arc but before Tartaros.


**Her Memories are Warm**

 **~~LoLu~~**

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Fairy Tail.

 **~~LoLu~~**

" _Lucy!?"_

Gemini blinked, then laughed a little. "No, baka, we're just copying our master," they said. "We're in the spirit world, Leo – how could she really be here, especially without _you_ knowing about it?"

Loke blushed a little at Gemini's comments. The twin spirits were right, after all. They were in the spirit world, not her world, and there _was_ no way she could manage to show up here without him knowing. (He was oversensitive when it came to her – so sue him.) He watched as Gemini turned back around and continued staring off into the universe somewhere, and something in the way they moved made him walk over and join them where they were sitting.

After he took a seat, he cleared his throat. "So... um... why are you copying Lucy's form right now? Not that I mind, or anything," he couldn't help but add with a rather glazed smile, as he stared at his master's borrowed curves with a covetous gaze that he didn't even try to hide.

Gemini inwardly rolled their eyes.

That question sobered them, though, and after a minute 'Lucy' dissipated and the twins were back in their normal forms.

"Her memories are... warm, like her heart," Castor began hesitantly, like he didn't quite know how to explain what he and his twin were thinking and feeling. It was obvious he was having to search for the words. "When we were still with Angel and she fought Lucy, she ordered us to kill her."

Loke snarled silently at that, the besotted smile disappearing from his face as if it had never been there. He'd suspected that's what would have happened even back then after that bitch had Caelum shoot him and Aries through the stomachs, sending them both back to the spirit world. He'd been frantic and terrified to death with the fear of it, and infuriated with his inability to do anything to help her. It was just... hard, actually _hearing_ it.

"So what happened?" he finally prodded, as Castor had fallen silent.

Pollux took over. "When we copied Lucy that first time, we could feel everything she felt, of course. And to our astonishment, her claims of loving her spirits, of them being her nakama, not property, were absolutely true. All the way to her core she feels that way. She really loves us. Then she started talking about you and Aries. And she practically begged Angel to cancel Aries' contract, said that she'd been through enough at the hands of cruel masters and should be freed."

Eyes falling, Loke huffed an almost silent laugh, the bare sound bittersweet. "Somehow I'm not surprised." _Oh_ , _Princess..._

The twins looked at each other, then Castor said, "Angel asked Lucy what she'd give for her to let Aries go, and she said anything."

Loke began to get a sick feeling in his gut as he realized where this was going. _She didn't... did she?_

Pollux continued the tale. "Then she asked her if she'd even give her life-"

"-and Lucy said yes," his twin ended.

The spirit of the celestial lion just stared at the two, eyes wide in horrified shock. _No... she wouldn't... Just so Aries could have a different master... for what to us here in the spirit world would be at the_ _most_ _ten months or a year? For something like that, she would give up an entire lifetime?!_ "B-but it's not like even having a bad master would kill one of us!" he sputtered, so stunned and stricken that he could barely think straight. _What was she thinking?!_

The twins bobbed their heads, little faces solemn. "She knew that, too. But it didn't matter to her, because she didn't want you and Aries to have to fight again. She cried for both of you. She was perfectly willing to die to assure your happiness. The sacrifice was worth it to her."

Loke didn't even know what to say. How _could_ a person say anything to something like that? He felt ill knowing he could have lost his master, and all over such a fleeting thing as Aries' bad owner. He could have lost the woman that in all truth, flirting aside, he really loved with all his heart. But at the same time that her willingness to sacrifice her _life_ for what amounted to Aries' _comfort_ infuriated him, it also made him fall even more in love with her, knowing she just wanted to protect the timid little spirit who so badly needed someone to shield her gentle soul.

Aries had certainly found that someone in the young celestial mage, as had they all, really. She protected them with everything she had. All her spirits were stronger than they'd ever been under anyone else, because she loved them... and they all loved her.

But none more so than him.

Lucy had such a tight hold on his heart now that he'd never be able to escape it, and he didn't even want to. She was precious to him.

His eyes fell closed as he finally realized it all in that moment – that he really _was_ in love with her, for better or worse. For a long time he'd managed to fend off consciously acknowledging what he'd known deep down for a while already, but now he just couldn't hide from it anymore.

He was done running from the knowledge. She owned him, and that had nothing to do with her being his master. It had to do with her being his heart.

"What stopped you from-" he gulped and opened his eyes, the thought choking his throat up, "-doing... it?" He couldn't even _force_ himself to say the word 'killed' in reference to Lucy – he just couldn't. The word wouldn't come.

"Love," both twins said simply.

There was a blank silence. Then, "What?"

"Love," Pollux repeated. "Her love. She cared for us all, _all_ the spirits, not just hers. She wanted us to be _happy._ What human has ever wanted us to be... happy? Most of them don't even think we have real feelings."

"We saw a memory in her mind-" Castor continued the tale before Loke could even gather his severely scattered thoughts, "-of when she was little, with her mother. She told her mother that she loved seirei, and wanted to be friends with all of us someday. Her mother laughed, and said that maybe she would be. How could we kill someone like that?"

"You disobeyed your master?" Loke was surprised, though infinitely grateful. That was... well, it didn't happen very often. Doing something like that could be a very dangerous path to take – just look to him and Karen for the proof of that. So that the twins had done so for someone they didn't even know...

And then he thought about it and laughed harshly at himself. _Well, that's the point here, isn't it? They know Lucy better than anyone except Lucy... because they've touched her mind and seen everything of who and what she is. That's why they're able to tell me all this._

"Of course we did. We loved her back as soon as we felt her love us. So we couldn't kill her." Castor said it so casually, as though it weren't even a question. Then again, that wasn't so surprising – this _was_ Lucy they were talking about. Even the spirit king called her 'old friend' now.

 _It's a good thing they didn't hurt her, or I'd never have forgiven them. I'd have hunted them through the entire universe, from one end to the other and back again._

It wasn't supposed to be like that. If a spirit's master was fighting another celestial mage, then whichever spirits were called into battle were enemies while there on Earthland. But all such grudges ended at the line between the realms. It had always been that way.

This one wouldn't have stopped there, though. Not even with a direct order from Seirei-o. He would have totally destroyed Gemini if they had harmed Lucy, one way or another – even if it killed him in the end. He was one hundred percent certain that the twins knew it, too.

He shook his head. It was fortunate for all of them that it hadn't come to that. "So... why were you thinking about that in particular? You said her memories are... warm? I suppose I can kind of understand that memory being warm for you, because that was when you first got to know her, got to feel her heart. But if that's so, why would thinking about it make you sad?"

The twins nodded. "Yes, warm is the right word. Sometimes it's just nice to remember those things, and feel warm again, as well. But even though they make us warm, some of those memories _are_ sad, so we feel that, too."

"Yeah," Loke muttered, still struggling to take in all he'd been told. "I bet she has a lot of sad ones."

"Well, yeah, there are," Castor replied, noting Leo's slowly darkening mood, "but-"

"-there are a lot more happy ones since she joined Fairy Tail. And met you." Pollux exchanged a sly glance with his twin, and then both looked at him and grinned. "But do you know what one of her very favorite memories is?"

The lion looked intrigued at their expressions despite himself, his disquiet temporarily arrested as his curiosity got the better of him. He cocked a brow in question. "No... but _do_ tell."

"You remember that job she went on and called you out, and then asked you to stay out for a while after it was finished because the town the job was in had a resort, and her team was going to stay for a few days? When she told you it was to thank you for helping them complete it?"

Now Loke was beginning to grin. Oh, he did _indeed_ remember that job. He'd gotten to see a _lot_ more of his beautiful master that four days than he ever had before. He wouldn't soon forget _that_ vacation. "Go on," he prompted, simply unable to resist.

"Well, for one, she didn't just invite you to thank you for helping on that job," Castor smirked.

Pollux laughed. "Yeah, and for two, she managed to catch sight of you as you were getting in the onsen on the guy's side – _after_ you'd shed your towel."

"Oh, really?" the lion purred, his eyes narrowing in a very dangerous way – like a predator that had just caught the scent of prey. "That's one of her favorite memories, is it?"

Pollux giggled. "She got a nosebleed. And her female friends all kept asking her what was wrong, but she kept insisting that her nose was just dried out."

"In an onsen?" Loke looked dubious. "That's the best excuse she could come up with? Seriously?"

The twins laughed as one. "That's what her redheaded friend said. Then Lucy turned as red as that girl's hair, and all the other girls started teasing her. But they have the wrong end of the stick – they seem to think she has a thing for that ice mage friend of hers. They thought that maybe she'd spotted _him_ getting into the onsen."

"Gray?" Leo asked incredulously. "They think Lucy has a thing for _Gray_?! That's crazy!" he cracked up. "He'd drive her insane inside of a day, not to mention the whole Juvia thing. I think that'd be the shortest relationship ever. Wow... Gray. Natsu I could _maybe_ see, but not Gray. What are those girls thinking?"

"Well, who did you think Lucy liked?"

"I didn't have a clue – but I was certainly hoping like hell it was me," the leader of the zodiac admitted with a smirk. "Or would be at some point – the sooner the better, of course."

"Well, then I guess it's lucky for you it was sooner, because she definitely more than 'likes' you," the twins chirped. "So what are you going to do about it?"

Surprisingly, Loke's glee-filled grin faded, and his earlier, darker mood abruptly returned. His eyes grew shadowed, and after a moment he said, "I need a little time, first. You know, before I talk to her. I kind of need to deal with what you told me earlier before I can do that with a clear mind. I'm still not sure how to feel about that whole thing. Whether I should be angry that she tried to give up her life like that, or... I don't even know," he sighed. "I guess I just need to take a little time and process it, wrap my head around it... however you want to say it."

"Oh... yeah," Castor said.

"We forgot that's what we were originally talking about," Pollux added. "We're sorry if we upset you."

"We didn't mean to," they both finished in unison.

Loke shook his head. "It's... alright. I'm actually glad you told me. I didn't know what had happened with all that, and the one time I tried to ask Lucy she just got kind of quiet and I could see it bothered her, so I let it go and never asked again." He frowned. "Does Aries know?" That question had just occurred to him.

Gemini shook their heads. "We don't think so, but you'd have to ask her to know for sure. We didn't tell her, but there's no saying she didn't find out some other way. Do you want her to know?"

"I'm not sure," he replied. "I guess that's another thing I need to think about."

The twins looked at each other, and then back at Loke. "Well, maybe you should take Lucy's wishes into account in that matter," they said. "She didn't want Aries to know, because she didn't want her to feel guilty."

"I shouldn't be surprised," Loke grumbled after a pause. "She has such a generous heart. And you're right. It was Lucy's right to decide, and now that you've pointed it out, I agree. Aries would only feel bad, and she's had enough of that to last a thousand human lifetimes already." The lion stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets. "I'm gonna go think about things. If Lucy calls you out, don't mention any of this to her, please."

Gemini nodded. Loke was being polite about it, but that wasn't really a request, it was an order from the leader of the zodiac. In this world, the lion's word was only overruled by Seirei-o himself. "Sure, Leo. Just... don't take too long thinking about it, you know?"

Loke nodded. _Yeah_. After today, he really _did_ know. Death at any time was always a possibility for a human, let alone a mage. He'd always known that. But he hadn't allowed himself to know it with _Lucy_ , as if to avoid thinking about it would negate it ever happening to her.

"If I blink, she'll be gone," he whispered brokenly, forcing himself to face reality even as his heart shattered inside his chest at the ugly truth of it. "And then... I'll never... never see her again." He touched a hand to his chest, to where Regulus should be beating – but it felt hollow and empty, instead. Lifeless. This was what he had to look forward to as the years rolled by and Lucy got older and came closer to death – constant, unrelenting pain. And once she was actually gone, it would only get so much worse...

Gemini's reply wasn't exactly what he'd expected, but when he pressed them they refused to elaborate. They just smiled equally mysterious smiles and faded away to somewhere else in the celestial realm – leaving him frustrated but fearfully hopeful at what they could have meant by their parting words.

"Oh, we wouldn't say _never_ , but we're not telling you where!" they'd sing-songed as they'd disappeared, leaving Loke to stare after them and stew restlessly in his thoughts.

If Leo was half as smart as he thought he was, then he should be able to figure it out from there, the twins thought as one – and they wouldn't _technically_ have violated the command from the spirit king to keep certain things under wraps.

It wouldn't be long, no more than another nine or ten months or so at the most – at least here in the spirit world – and then the lion would know for himself just where he was going to see Lucy again.

It was about time big-brother Leo got to be happy... and he was going to be _very_ happy.

~~LoLu~~

A/N: Just my idea of a scene where Loke finds out about what Lucy almost did for his and Aries' sakes. And to know that she'd been willing to give her very life for Aries' happiness, just like she'd done for him... well... how would you feel to find out someone had done such a thing for you or someone you cared about? This is Loke, so he just falls harder for Lucy. As for the Castor and Pollux thing, that's what the Gemini twins were named in Greek mythology, so I went with that. And the ending, it should be pretty obvious, so I'm not going to elaborate any further on that, take it or leave it. Now I can get back to the next chapter of Backfired: The Wedding, the Bonding, and Beyond. This kind of took over my mind yesterday and I had to write it.

Ja!


End file.
